Exploring Your Interests WILL Take You Places!

So what do you want to be when you grow up?

How often do kids hear this? I know I heard it, my kids heard it. And it did have an impact. From an early age we start thinking about what kind of occupation we want for our Grown Up Life.   We show an interest in the way the body works, our grandma says we should be a doctor. We want to visit the pet store, our aunt thinks we should become a vet. We like little kids, maybe a teacher.  But if we show an interest in drawing, odds are, our dad will tell us, "You can't really make a living at that." If we want to play a lot of video games, our mom reminds us that "You can't do that for the rest of your life."

So we're pushed and we're pulled and all the while, we're just curious. We find things that make us happy and we want to do them.

Michael & Tomohiro

My son Michael, knew he was interested in travel. He especially liked to learn about other cultures. We had an exchange student from Japan when he was 12, and that was clearly the jumping off place. At 16, he went to Japan himself for 2 months as an exchange student. In college, he took a semester and studied anthropology and archaeology in Belize. He graduated with a degree in Journalism and a plan to become a Travel Writer. He's currently in the Peace Corps and working with high school students in Nicaragua.

Katie in CATS

My daughter Katie wanted to be on a stage from the very beginning. She'd sit on the counter in the bathroom and watch herself belt out songs from Fievel Goes West. She had an enormous ability to memorize lines. She performed in the living room along with shows on TV, moved into skits in our backyard with friends, then on to community theatre. Her interest in acting and singing continued to grow and she did more shows, took more lessons, landed some commercials, and even films. Because her desires didn't waver, she now is studying at the New York Film Academy and living her dream.

Alyssa applying Zombie Make-up

Alyssa was the one who was most interested in pop culture and the fashion/make-up world. She taped pictures of movie stars with their beautiful hair and make up all over her room. Her interest continued.  At a farmer's market in Austin, I spoke with a woman who was making her own natural make-up. I noticed that she did classes for younger teens. I was immediately drawn to that because i was secretly hoping Alyssa would curb her heavy eyeliner obsession. We signed up for the class and the woman offered Alyssa an internship in her shop. Alyssa learned how to make the make-up, how to apply it on models. She worked with photographers, learned about lighting,  and worked backstage at fashion shows. She had found her niche.  It was a natural step for her to go to a local cosmetology school and learn more. So when she found a Vidal Sassoon school nearby, she signed up and started classes.

Alyssa & her guinea pig 

Just to be clear though, each them explored all kinds of different paths before choosing the one they are on.  They took other classes, got jobs, joined teams, but over time, their interest in these particular areas continued to rise to the top, while the others fell away. A great example of this is Alyssa's love of animals. From an early age, she spent hours playing with pets. She read books about them, she cut out pictures of them... if there were animals, she wanted to see them! Later, she discovered horses and wanted to be around them all the time. Because people often told her, "You should be a vet," she started to tell people that's what she wanted to do. But she really didn't know what vets did…until we moved to a ranch in Texas. Her horse had turned his head into a Mesquite tree thorn. The vet had to come out to the house.  I will spare you the gruesome details, but after watching the vet remove the thorn, Alyssa decided she did NOT want to be a vet. She would continue her love of animals, but dealing with sick or injured animals was not her thing. Good to know before we spent thousands of dollars at Texas A & M for vet school!

What if we, as adults, stopped the conversations about what someone is going to be. And instead, just enjoy the moment. Play with the puppies. Find some cool drawing books. Learn to play the video game with your child.  Eliminate any pressures. No big plans. Just stay with it until it either branches into something else, or continues to go deeper. Because life works itself out. And without a lot of nudging in various directions, kids really WILL know what they like to do by the time they're in their late teens. They will have had an opportunity to really get to know themselves and their true interests. 

Sometimes, when you read about kids going off to college, you hear parents say, "How do they know what they want to be at 18?"  But kids who've been given the opportunity to freely explore what they like to do in their younger years, OFTEN know what they want to try for a career - or at least where they want to start. They just needed  that time and space to listen to their own inclinations without a heavy influence on what might be a successful career move.

Here we are at Olive Garden, Summer 2011
Michael is about to leave for the Peace Corps
Katie is going to an NYC film school
Alyssa is starting in a Vidal Sasoon cosmetology school

Camping In Autumn

Ron's the camper in our family. In Alaska, he went on expeditions in below zero weather. Las Spring, he took Michael and Kelly Berg to the Big Bend. This is particularly sweet because we used to camp with the Berg family when the kids were little. And Dave, Kelly's dad, went on that winter camping expedition with Ron. Dave's ashes were spread at Big Bend fairly recently, and Ron and Michael took Kelly back there to visit.

Camping always seemed to strengthen bonds - within our family as well as with our friends.

Katie 1997

Because we moved so often with the military, our family campouts were scattered all over the country. We camped on the beach outside Santa Barbara with literally hundreds of homeschoolers. We've watched black bears poke around for food in neighboring campsites at Denali State Park. We've camped on the Blue Ridge Parkway, on the banks of the Eagle River, on Homer Spit, Bodega Bay, and Yellowstone - to name a few! Our kids grew up making s'mores, playing in the campfire smoke, and finding constellations in the nighttime sky. It's a fairly inexpensive way to spend a lot of time together with your family.

As the kids have grown, family camping trips have dwindled in numbers. Occasionally, Ron would take Michael or Alyssa off on a weekend, one at a time. Schedules are just tougher when kids go off to school or work. It's not unusual for Ron to go off on a solo camping trip these days. He packs his motorcycle with the bare necessities - that's all he needs - and he's off to the Great Outdoors.

Katie Alyssa Michael - 1999

 But this trip was different. Texas record heat was finally behind us. Ron, Alyssa, Josh (Alyssa's boyfriend) and I were all talking about camping. The weather was cooler and the leaves were falling. Definitely our kind of camping weather.  So I gave Ron my schedule for weekends in November, and he to a reservation at Mother Neff State Park, just north of Temple, Texas.  Katie and Michael are off in New York and Nicaragua, so they obviously weren't going to be joining us.  After the date was set, Alyssa reminded us that she had a special class to take that Sunday. She'd have to bail and join us next time.

Ok, then.

Just Ron and me, no kids at all. The last time we camped without kids was probably 1986 - nearly 25 years ago!  But after all this time, I'm used to changes in plans. But, for me, this felt really different.

Campsite Antics of Yesteryear!

Ron left Friday night to get a good campsite. The tens were really cold, I wimped out and decided to join him the next morning. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. The smell of the campfires, rustling of the leaves, the creaking of the trees rubbing against each other in the wind - fabulous! We couldn't help but notice that all the campsites around us were full of families with children. Babies cried, dogs barked, kids skateboarded and played catch all around us.


Ron's been camping a lot without it being a whole family experience. I have not. So we reminisced about past campouts and our children's crazy antics over the years. We were relieved we didn't have to calm any babies, watch over the pyro tendencies of our children, or make sure someone wasn't falling into the river. We took pictures of nature itself - instead of pictures with kids as the focal point and nature as just a prop. I texted the kids to say goodnight and sent them this picture of our campfire. It was peaceful and relaxing... yet definitely a melancholy moment for me.  The sun set and I sat by the crackling campfire writing while Ron hit the hay.

Yes, it feels like Autumn.

Out and About

I was asked if we used the community much with regards to how the kids learned.
. Short answer: Yes. Long answer (and I mean LONG)...read this: 

One of the BEST reasons to homeschool is the ability to get out into the community with your children during the daytime.  Lines are shorter. There are way less crowds to deal with.  Plus, you and the kids will have so much more energy to go off exploring in the daytime, instead of waiting until they've already done 8 hours of school and trying to wedge it in those oh-so-short after school hours.

But maybe you're wondering just what community outings I'm talking about. With three very different kids, we’ve had a lot of different experiences.  And, since the Air Force moved us several times, we had the opportunity to discover more cool activities in new communities. Now that my kids are grown, we can wander back down memory lane and see some if any of these ideas might inspire you!

We started homeschooling in Alaska. The kids played in a hockey league and a Coaches Pitch baseball league. They tried Indian Princess and started in Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts.  Each of the scout troops took them out into the community, especially for service. All three joined the Sunshine Generation, a group that sang and performed in parades, malls, nursing homes. We went to the start of the Iditarod, and followed our neighbor who was mushing. We helped our friends with their 14 sled dogs and went on the trails with them mushing. We ice skated at the mall, took monthly classes at the Eagle River Nature Center, the Anchorage Museum, and the Imaginarium (a hands-on Science museum). AND, we got to stay as long as we wanted instead of being hustled back into the bus after just dipping our toes in those different explorations. Our veterinarian let us watch our cats be spayed and declawed. We learned about how the cat's body works, including how quickly their pads pink up when the oxygen level is increased. We went to the Earthquake Museum and talked to people who lived through the Quake of '62. We saw baby polar bears at the Zoo, bald eagles at Homer Spit, and penguins at Seward. We swam at the indoor pool during the daytime, took ceramics class, went to the Opera, and listened to a Symphony. We spotted belugas and 20 foot tides in Turnagain Arm, salmon jumping in the air from the Russian River, and Native Alaskan history in Ketchikan. We picked berries in the mountains, talked to artisans in Girdwood, and pet a baby octopus who was living in a tank the Cordova Visitor Center, We went on a whale watching excursion and we survived a drunk ferry captain in Valdez. We camped and hiked and ice fished and built snow-caves. We went to Denali and saw grizzly bears. We saw black bears in our campground there! We gasped for air when we dipped our feet in the icy Chena River in Fairbanks and stopped off to hear elves working in Santa's workshop in North Pole.

 When we moved to California from Alaska, we took the Ferry, a 3 day ride. We went to the Fish Market in Seattle and hiked around Mt. St. Helen's volcano. We drove through redwoods – yes,  the forests, but also some of the trees that were big enough that cars drove through their trunks!  We picked apples in Sebastapol, saw where The Birds was filmed in Bodega Bay - and watched people's tents blow into the ocean when they couldn't withstand the wind. We got carsick on Hwy 1, touched stingrays at the aquarium and saw sea lions in Monterrey Bay.  We went to park days that lasted all day and astronomy outings that lasted all night. We camped on the beach in Santa Barbara and drank Fig Shakes on Seal Beach. We took Mad Science classes at the Library and more classes at various science and art museums nearby. A "museum pass" could get us into any museum in California – including the big ones down in San Francisco, so we went there too!  We saw Alcatraz and walked on the Golden Gate Bridge. We took a 108 foot Square Rigger named the Gaslight on the San Francisco Bay, and Michael and Ron spent the night with a group at Angel Island, reliving history. We ran the spotlight and the Tinkerbell light when Katie first started in community theatre, and often drove to Sacramento to watch Improv. We hung out at Barnes and Noble and Jamba Juice and we never missed the monthly farmer's market in Davis. We watched sheep be sheared at the county fair and took hay rides in pumpkin patches and apple orchards. We ate peaches that fell off the tree after the "shakers" came by to harvest. We smelled the almond and plum trees in bloom. We took horseback riding lessons and helped at ManMar ranch, an A & M veterinary training ranch. The kids learned about race horses, and in vitro insemination, and "crazy mares." They watched foals be born and old horses die. We helped build a barn and bought a horse. They rescued an injured Barn Owl, and saw the Raptor Center in action.  Weeks later, we went to a park and watched them release our little owl, ready to go back to the wild. We held unique birthday parties, including a “Bring Your Pet” party – even Alyssa’s Dentist and Hygienist came with their turtle and kitten! We watched Harry Potter premieres and hosted birthday parties that were totally Hogwart themed. We went to Rennaissance Faires and held Halloween parties with dry ice experiments. We hosted a Japanese Exchange student and took him to San Francisco to eat at the Bay, to ride roller coasters in Santa Cruz, and to a homeschool conference in Sacramento. We camped and hiked and learned to sail on Folsom Lake. We learned how the locks work in Lodi. We made the local news with our support group's Civil War Reenactment and we starred in a homeschool documentary.

Then we moved to a ranch in north Texas where we had horses, cows, goats, chickens, dogs, cats, birds, guinea pigs and a donkey. We had a lot of veterinary excursions with those! We participated in Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Alyssa even delivered Girl Scout Cookies by horseback! We saw hydroponic farming with live fish, worked in pecan orchards, ate fresh  peach ice cream in the Peach Festival in Charlie. We had air soft wars in neighboring fields, took cattle to auctions, and talked with the people on a real covered wagon train that had pulled over at the edge of our pasture. We participated in 4H which exposed us to SO many people in the community. The kids participated in elections, held offices, and met so many different people.  We bought a calf and started a cockatiel business. We birthed a calf with our neighbors. We met local news people,  were interviewed a few times for the community service projects we did, and participated in a film school offered by the public television service out of Dallas . Michael got his first job at Target and Katie got her first lead role at the community theatre. We spent a lot of time in various community theatre projects. We visited with a woman who had no running water, but collected rainwater in buckets. She was nearly 90 and could tell us about what it was like when Burkburnett was really a Boom Town and how rough the oil field workers were living in tents nearby. We handed out toys every year with the Toys for Tots program through the Salvation Army, and we organized huge blanket drives for the Linus Project. We built houses with Habitat for Humanity and worked the soup kitchens on New Year’s Eve. We went on camping trips, and rock climbed, and zip lined. We walked through emu farms, prairie dog mounds and participated in small town Christmas parties. The girls took tap and jazz and ballet and hip hop. Michael took a girl to her prom and started community college classes.

When we moved to the Austin area, we went to concerts, large and small. We continued with dance classes and theatre classes. We learned to use the bus system. We watched high wire acts at Cirque du Soleil and watched the Ringling Brothers unload elephants in the middle of town. We talked to legislators and worked on political campaigns. We learned about bats and watched them fly out from under the Congress Avenue bridge. We traveled with Alyssa's competitive cheerleading team, got involved with the SCA, and joined writing groups with NaNoWriMo.   We saw WW2 
re-enactments in Fredericksburg and we watched how fast the sun sets from the top of Enchanted Rock. We spent a lot of time hanging out with friends and their families.

Vacations were always filled with learning, whether we meant it to or not! We watched bison and geysers at Yellowstone, Revolutionary history in Alexandria, and national monuments in D.C. We explored New York City with its rich immigrant history and fascinating architecture.  We messed with the fish at a hatchery in Arkansas and danced with the jazz culture in a rebuilding New Orleans.

Their teen employment took them out in the community with jobs as cashiers  and instructors (dance, make-up, swimming lessons), baby-sitting and pet-sitting, bookstores and movie theatres,  life-guarding, house-cleaning  house-sitting, and even radio D.J.-ing.

Alyssa took on an internship with an organic make-up company. She learned to run the store, work with customers and teach Girl Scout troops. She learned to do make-up on fashion shows, walked the runway herself (once!), and assisted photographers. Her love of eyeliners and color combinations led her to a Vidal Sassoon cosmetology program where she will be paid to play with all that.

Opening up our home to the exchange student when Michael was 12, led him on a path of cultural and foreign travel. He started with his own exchange student program – 3 months in Japan at 16. He took Archaeology/Anthropology classes in Belize, and is now on an assignment for the Peace Corps. Ironically, the boy who never stepped foot in an American high school now teaches English in a Nicaraguan high school!

Katie’s love of “putting on a show!” started with backyard theatre productions with our support group kids in Davis and Dixon, Califronia.  From there, she moved  to community theatre, then to local films and commercials and now she's enrolled in a conservatory in NYC.

The point is simply that involving your kids in the community helps them discover what THEY would like to do. What adventure interests them? There’s no telling what it will grow into. While you may not have lived in as many places as we did, you could. We chose the military so I could be a stay-at-home mom. And that enabled me to get out and about and become the best tour guide around! 

Sure, when someone says, “Do you do things in the community?” or “What do you do all day with kids?”,  I just smile. My days are only limited by my stamina!   If you will just look around and be willing to drive a bit, involving your child in your community (and your neighboring communities) will be the best homeschooling choice you make.